Remedy the Wound
by Unmasked Potential
Summary: A one-shot that explores the depth of Loki's character and all the dismissive practices he engages in to keep himself separate from Thor's unconditional love. These are the lies Loki tells himself and still, the two share a moment together.


Remedy the Wound

Word prompt: Blur from Wordpress. Written February 19th 2017.

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Nails: Clipped, borrowed, burrowed.

Hands: Fisted, angered, sore.

Eyes: Green, emotional, blurred.

Mind: Lost, misunderstood, damaged.

Heart: Beating, alive, desperately seeking to be loved.

His soul: Together, yet crinkled around the edges.

Who is he? No one: nothing-and everything.

Identity: Murky, unknown, once a whole-now, glued together with separation.

Where does he belong? Uncertainty laces through his veins, he does not know; once with Asgardians, then with Jotuns, now with…no one?

Amongst the mortals he walks. He strides forward with purpose, although unsolidified worry halts his progression. Where is he going? What is his purpose?

He fears, deep down, that there is not one.

Again, he walks: eyes darting down the alleyways, analyzing for a threat that never comes. Without purpose, he shrivels inside. His broken spirit leaks out into his relationships…the few he even has.

His "brother" seeks him. His "brother" wanders through the realms, day and night, looking for his lost sibling.

He guffaws. He is not "lost", he is "better", "stronger", "incomprehensible." He is everything to these mortals-everything they fear so dearly. Trudge through him they will not, for they know his power over their puny lives.

Even though he fails to use it, powerlessness creeps over his shoulders, dragging them into poor posture. Hopelessness crowds his vision, despair lingering on the words half-formed on his tongue, but his mouth does not produce them. Talk is cheap; he has nothing left to say, with nothing of importance.

 **He** is not of importance. Why his elder bothers to pursue him, he feigns ignorance.

Caught in a whirlwind of emotion, tumbling with expectation, he had embraced his exile. No more "family" to pretend he belonged to, no more of a "culture" in his life that he could never measure up to, no more "greed" and "mead" and "crystallized brute strength."

No, instead he could wander the realms, although he always managed to be pulled back to this one. There was something about Midgard that got under his skin. Maybe it was the almost victory, the almost ruling he would have had had the Chitauri stepped up their game, had the loathed "Avengers" been weaker and broken-his lips curl in distaste, he spits to the concrete at the memory-just as they were meant to be...

Maybe, but maybe's were for fools wishing for a yesterday that never comes.

He is "better" he reasons. He is "more"-more than the nothingness, the shadows that reign about him.

But he knows better. He knows he is the opposite-a sliver of the would-be king he once was. The void had done him ill. The Other had crippled his mind. Thanos had ruined him. Or was it that Thanos **ruled** him? The distinction seemed to matter, for the exhale came out long and hard, annoyance seeping into his betrayed soul.

Oh, how he had been betrayed! Lied to, disowned, unaware of his true heritage, lost to the void, mourned by his brethren, but did they ever search for him? He chortled on his spit. Of course not! What type of "family" did he truly grow up with? So quick to accept his fate that they didn't even bother to search for him!

 _But how could they?_ A thought sneaks its way into his peripheral vision.

 _How could they have known?_

He bites his pink flesh, swallowing hard and attempting to ignore the kindness, the compassion, his mind is so readily available to give to him.

 _Maybe they didn't know…Maybe it was impossible for them to know…_

"But if they truly loved, they would have **known**!"

Again, the rage inside dissipated. They would have known, if they loved him, they would have known he was alive. They wouldn't have given up hope, they wouldn't have surrendered to the thought that he was taken by Valhalla. They would have searched for him, day in and night out; they would have LOVED him enough to believe in him, to believe in his strengths, his mind, his magic-HIM!

He saw it often enough with the mortals! How-no, WHY-was he any different? When one of their kin, often the younger children, disappeared, they searched endlessly for them. They put up these pathetic slices of paper with a photo of their missing ones, and they went into the square shaped black box, speaking out about their loved one, casting hope into the abyss, sharing a light through the bleak darkness.

Where was his light when he required it? Where was his lighthouse when he was caught in the void?

Because he never saw it, he never tasted freedom, he never wished for his "brother" more than ever before.

But no one came.

They all just accepted the fates of the nine realms: Loki was gone and he would never come back.

Well, he had shown them. He had shown that they were wrong, that he had RETURNED, that he was alive and he could not be vanquished. He was "better", "stronger", and it would take more to get rid of his spirit.

The trickster kicked at a clump of white snow. It knocked into the side of a gray Sedan, promptly leaving an indent and serving him with its high pitched howl.

Dragging in a breath, he rolled his eyes. The mortals needed to invest in better security measures.

If he had smiled then at the proud sticker boasting about its love for the Man of Iron plastered onto the Sedan, he would fervently deny it.

….A flicker in the window above him caught his green eyes. He looked up, shoulders squaring back, and mischief glinting in his teeth.

There he stood: Thor.

Thor with his blue eyes of shock and confusion, Thor who had just ravished Vanaheim searching for his brother, only to find him mischievously staring back at him a thousand yards below.

If Thor noticed the dent in Mr. Stark's newly replaced vehicle, it never passed his facial expressions. If Thor had heard the grating noise of the alarm system accosting his ears, he didn't bat an eye at it.

All he saw was the one he never gave up on. All he saw was his little brother, looking up at him with barely concealed contempt.

They shared that moment together.

Until Loki gave a curt nod, and spun on his heel. A lyric from a passing car cementing the moment into his brain:

"And if my blue skies fade to black, and if there is no turning back, you're gonna see me standing tall, 'cause you know that I'm a warrior."

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 **A/N** : It's been a long while since I wrote any type of fanfic, and I have a lot of unseen works behind the scenes, so I thought I'd pick up this prompt and write for a while. This is what came out. I'd like to think it's more complex and unique than it may actually be. Song lyrics/background song used: "Warrior" by Trisha Paytas. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review! Thank you for visiting! 3


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